The way I understand receptors are usually first come first served.
If someone has taken drugs that have bound to the receptor how does the narcan then bind to the receptor and revive someone?
In: Chemistry
Narcan is a ***competitive antagonist*** for the opioid receptors, which means it binds to the receptors very strongly (*competitive*) without activating the receptor (*antagonist* vs *agonist*). Basically, it binds to part of the opioid receptor strongly enough that it tends to stay there even if another molecule comes along that could also bind to that part of the receptor. And because the receptor won’t do anything unless the whole thing is correctly bound, the narcan blocks opioid agonists like heroin from binding to the receptors and actually activating them. So it very quickly reverses the fatal effects of an opioid overdose but doesn’t hurt you if you’re not ODing.
Pharmacological activity pretty much looks like if you got a bunch of people together, randomly attached strong magnets all over their bodies, recorded them dancing shoulder-to-shoulder in a packed club for a night, and then played the footage at 100x speed. They get stuck together and separate constantly, but overall the ones who stayed stuck together in the same configuration for the longest periods of time were the ones who had their magnets lined up correctly (he’s got two + magnets on his arms, she’s got two – magnets on her back, etc.)
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